European Athletics (EAA) – News – Snow and cold test the Polish champions

It is less than two weeks until the World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcz and the message is clear – wrap up warm.

In temperatures of -5 degrees, runners at the Polish Cross Country Championships competed on the course to be used on Sunday week and they endured snow and frost, conditions that no-one could have forecast just hours before.

On Thursday, it was 15 degrees but the sudden change saw an event where Katarzyna Kowalska, from LKS Vectra DGS Włocławek, defended her the title in 8km title, and where she return to represent her country at the championships.

An interesting fact though.

In the longer distances, the times were around two minutes faster than 12 months ago when the ground was muddy after the snow had melted which augurs well for performances at the final major international competition of the winter on March 24.

It was some performance, though, from Kowalska who won the title for a sixth time while Błażej Brzeziński, of WKS Śląsk Wrocław, won the men's 12km race.

But the 300 athletes who took part in the competition on Sunday could never have believed they would endure a course blanketed in snow.

The night before the competition, there was no sign as to what they would wake up to.
It was dry outside, and there was no snow falling.

But by the time of the event at the Forest Park for Culture and Leisure, the picturesque setting had been decorated with a layer of white after an intensive snowfalls which lasted until just before the start of the Championships.

Kowalska, 27, was not challenged as she won the women's 8km race in 26:15 from Agnieszka Ciolek, of AWF Wroclaw, who was second in 26:30 with her clubmate Dominika Napieraj third in 27:03.

When the World Cross Country Championships were last held in this Polish city in 2010, Kowalska finished 36th, and on the track, she is a 3000m steeplechaser who won the European under-23 title back in Erfut in 2003.

"It was real hard race, especially with the snow and the wind," said Kowalska.

Brzeziński, the Polish marathon champion from 2011, won in 34:41, six seconds faster than his club colleague, Arkadiusz Gardzielewski, with Tomasz Szymkowiak, of LUKS Orkan Września, third in 34:55.